


Distinctions

by TheQueenofMirth



Series: You said The Queen of Nothing’s excerpt? Sorry, I heard prompt. [2]
Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Excerpts from book 3: The Queen of Nothing, Similarities and differences, Sisters, Spoilers for Book 3: The Queen of Nothing, The Queen of Nothing theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenofMirth/pseuds/TheQueenofMirth
Summary: This fic is about Jude and Taryn and some distinctions between them.This One-shot is based in TQON’s excerpts.  I used the Bustle’s excerpt as a reference and a Novl’s excerpt as a prompt. So, if you don’t want any TQON spoiler stop right here.





	Distinctions

When people think about identical twins, they often tend to believe it's hard to tell them apart. It’s not. Identical twins like different things, they live different lives, they see the world through different points of view. They love different people in different ways.

And, contrary to what fiction can make it seem, identical twins dress differently.¹

In a living room of a human house, Jude and Taryn Duarte prove that this is true.

One of them looks as mortal as the place they are in. She wears ripped jeans - not purposefully ripped by a dressmaker, but accidentally torn apart during battles - and a loose-fitting sweater. On her feet, there are a pair of combat boots. Her hair is stuck in a hard, practical bun. No make-up in her face, no jewellery adorning her body. She sits in the couch, her feet over a low table and her arms crossed over her chest. Her gaze is sharp like knives. She obviously waits for something from her twin.

The other one could be mistaken for a Faerie princess by someone who has never seen a true one. She walks from side to side nervously while receiving all the power of his sister's evaluative gaze. But she isn’t elegant - in this room, she doesn’t even look human - but supernatural. In her dress flowers are still blooming. Her lips are red as blood and the eyelashes make shadows on her cheeks. She has many jewels in her. A pair of diamond bracelets are matching with her choker. Her hand are adorned with more rings than fingers, almost one for each phalanx. A long chain necklace going down the valleys of her breasts hiding her pendant beneath them, so even if someone looks directly into her neckline it would still be up to the imagination to wonder what that pendant might be. In her ears, metal tips imitate the shape of faerie ears and a pair of earrings hang in her lobe, a star and a moon.

They are twins, the identical type.

They aren’t alike.

“Stop marching, you aren’t a soldier. Look glad. Don't be stiff. You have to be more graceful than that. Remember you are enchanted to be here in anyone presence. You should look like you want to have fun. Humble. Glad. Graceful.” Jude faces Taryn who features ugly and crude disdain. Being Taryn a master of mimesis, that could only be a perfect imitation of Jude. If it's that way she looked all the time, it's no surprise that almost everyone dislikes her. No problem in that, almost everyone she knows betrayed her at some point too.

Like Taryn.

“Don’t look at me as if you want to hurt me. You aren’t you right now. You are me. Be sweet.”

_Sweet_ , the word almost brings her to the floor. Or maybe, it is the unnecessarily thin high heels. Maybe the impractical stuffed skirt. Probably everything at once.

“This is kind of hard.”

“No, it isn’t. Look at me.” Jude waits for some change of posture accompanied by some pretty good acting. Maybe a piece of advice. But none of this happens. Taryn stares at her with a blank expression and says “ **I, Jude Duarte, High Queen of Elfhame in exile, spend most mornings dozing in front of daytime television, watching cooking competitions and cartoons.** ” She doesn’t say as mocking, Taryn talk without any feeling in her voice and takes her time to do it. Every word is delivered slowly. The criticism is brutal and hits Jude right in.

Taryn just set facts and they are incontrovertible. Her life is _pathetic_.²

“I’m doing you a favour.” Jude spits out.

Taryn's response is placid. “And I’m giving you an opportunity in return.” Even sisters, even needing each other, they have made a bargain. No one could accuse them of don't follow the folk customs. “Don’t try to act as you are doing this because of your kind heart. Jude Duarte can’t step a foot in Faerie, Taryn can.” 

“You are a criminal too.”

“I will not forfeit my life if I get caught.”

What Taryn has offered isn’t so good and some may say it isn’t worth its price. But it’s an opportunity and that's all Jude needs. So she keeps training. Listening. Learning. Wearing Taryn as if she were a beautiful and uncomfortable new shoe. Breaking in.

* * *

Many hours later, Jude sits on the couch next to Taryn in her own clothes while they wait for Vivi to arrive with Oak. Her feets sting and her calves ache. But it’s nothing compared to her cheeks. Smile is the worst part.

“When you said that you killed Locke, I thought that you had done it with your own hands.”

“If someone will kill him because of something I did, it’s the same thing.” Taryn hugs a cushion, but her expression isn't vulnerable as the gesture could make she seems.

Frustration hit Jude hard. “No, Taryn. It’s not.” Even after her speech about the power of ‘No’ she still have been caught by her sister's lies. “You just wanted my attention.” And she has given it like a fool that can’t learn with her owns mistakes.

_Nevermore_ , that’s a promise. Taryn would never deceive or use her again, Jude would be smarter.

“He is my husband, Jude, I had to…” Jude's eyes have no empathy or forgiveness for her sister. They are disturbingly empty. Taryn can’t face them without asking herself what is missing there so she turns her head in another direction. “Forget, you don’t know how it’s like.”

When Taryn isn’t looking, Jude’s hand goes to the point beneath her breasts where a ring hangs in her chain necklace - the only jewellery she uses, the one she never takes off - and her eyes sparkle with emotions so opposed that they should never be put together. They shine as broken glass on the floor, invisible until light strikes. Jude watches the sister who hasn't chosen her fight for her loved one’s life, while Jude plans a comeback for hers.

“You are right, I don’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> A narrator's opinion is not necessarily similar to the author's opinion, for example,  
> 1 - I think twins should wear in the way they want - alike or not.  
> 2 - Jude’s life isn't pathetic.


End file.
